Prof
Niro Siriwardena

Professor of Primary & Pre-Hospital Health Care

About Niro Siriwardena

Niroshan is an academic general practitioner and director of the Community and Health Research Unit, the research centre for the School of Health and Social Care which he founded. After studying at the City of London School as Corporation of London music scholar, he completed medical training at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, where he was awarded the Kirke’s scholarship in Clinical Medicine. After house jobs at ‘Bart’s’ and Hackney Hospitals, and general medical training at Hillingdon Hospital, he undertook his general practitioner training in Lincolnshire. He has been a GP since 1990 and continued in practice until 2015. Since embarking on an academic career he has continued providing clinical and academic leadership in primary and prehospital care.
He research focusses on quality improvement and implementation science using a range of methods (systematic reviews, observational and qualitative studies, experimental methods and clinical trials) to identify and address important gaps in primary and prehospital (ambulance) healthcare provision.
His work has been supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR: Programme Grant for Applied Research, Health Technology Assessment, Health Services and Delivery Research, and Policy Research Programmes), Research Councils UK (EPSRC, MRC), European Commission (FP7 and Horizon 2020), and major charities (British Heart Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Health Foundation, Burdett Trust). He has published in leading journals including the BMJ, Vaccine, Stroke, Sleep, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Annals of Family Medicine, Annals of Emergency Medicine and Resuscitation. He is coauthor of Quality Improvement in Primary Care: the Essential Guide.
Key publications (orcid.org/0000-0003-2484-8201) include:
1. Siriwardena AN, Shaw D, Essam N, Togher F, Davy Z, Spaight A, Dewey M. The effect of the Ambulance Services Cardiovascular Quality Initiative on prehospital care for acute myocardial infarction and stroke in England. Implementation Science 2014; 9:17.
2. Huedo-Medina T, Kirsch I, Middlemass J, Klonizakis M, Siriwardena AN. Effectiveness of non-benzodiazepine hypnotics in treatment of adult insomnia: meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. British Medical Journal 2012; 345: e8343.
3. Siriwardena AN, Asghar Z, Coupland C. Influenza and pneumococcal vaccination and risk of stroke or transient ischaemic attack—Matched case control study. Vaccine 2014; 32: 1354-1361.
4. Siriwardena AN, Gwini S, Coupland C. Influenza vaccination, pneumococcal vaccination, and the risk of acute myocardial infarction: matched case-control study. Canadian Medical Association Journal 2010; 182 (15): 1617- 1623.
5. Gwini SM, Coupland C, Siriwardena AN. The effect of influenza vaccination on risk of acute myocardial infarction: self-controlled case-series study. Vaccine 2011; 29: 1145-1149.
6. Ankolekar S, Fuller M, Cross I, Renton C, Cox P, Sprigg N, Siriwardena AN, Bath P. Feasibility of an ambulance-based trial, and safety of glyceryl trinitrate, in patients with ultra-acute stroke: the ‘Rapid Intervention with Glyceryl trinitrate in Hypertensive stroke Trial’ (RIGHT, ISRCTN66434824). Stroke 2013; 44: 3120-3128.
7. Gillam SG, Siriwardena AN, Steel N. Pay-for-performance in the UK: the impact of the Quality and Outcomes framework – systematic review. Annals of Family Medicine 2012; 10: 461-468.

Department Responsibilities

Director, Community and Health Research Unit (www.cahru@org.uk)
Deputy Head of School of Health and Social Care
Member, Lincoln Institute for Health (http://lih.lincoln.ac.uk)
PhD supervision: Jolien Vos: Navigating the care system (awarded 2017); Hannah Henderson: Intended actions, unintended outcomes: towards a processual understanding of exercise referral schemes (awarded 2017); Joseph Akanuwe: Cancer risk assessment tools in primary care; Fiona Togher: Development of an ambulance patient reported experience measure; Mohammad Iqbal: Development of a patient reported outcome measure for pain treatment; Nadya Essam: National Early Warning Scores to support paramedics’ decisions; Laura Simmons: Stress as a cause of sickness absence in the ambulance service; Viet-Hai Phung: Delivering ambulance service care that meets the needs of Eastern European migrants; Greg Whitley: Paediatric pain management in the ambulance service.

Evaluating effectiveness, safety, patient experience and system implications of different models of using GPs in or alongside Emergency Departments [co-applicant]
— awarded £752360 by NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme in 2017

What are the predictors, barriers and facilitators to effective management of acute pain in injured children by ambulance services? Doctoral fellowship awarded to Greg Whitley [director of studies]
— awarded £56244 by Health Education East Midlands/CLAHRC East Midlands in 2017

Measuring and improving the health and quality of healthcare for offenders on community sentences: developing recommendations for commissioners and practitioners [co-applicant]
— awarded £150000 by NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme in 2017

Improving the response of ambulance services in England: Second stage pilots
— awarded £7550 by Department of Health in 2016

Electronic Records in Ambulances to support the shift to out of hospital care: challenges, opportunities and workforce implications (ERA) [co-applicant]
— awarded £380318 by NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme in 2016

Understanding variation in rates of ambulance service non-conveyance of patients to an emergency department (VAN) [co-applicant]
— awarded £328706 by NIHR: Health Services and Delivery Research Programme in 2015

Development and feasibility testing of an interactive, educational programme to facilitate Proactive Assessment of Obesity Risk during Infancy (ProAsk) [co-applicant]
— awarded £149995 by Medical Research Council in 2014

Innovative hypoglycaemia pathway for self-care at home and admission avoidance: a partnership approach with a regional ambulance trust (The Ambulance-Hypo Study) [co-applicant]
— awarded £291952 by NIHR Collaboration for Applied Leadership in Health and Care East Midlands in 2013

Creating the infrastructure for the development of non-medical clinical academic careers in prehospital and ambulance services research [co-lead]
— awarded £26476 by East Midlands Health Innovation and Education Cluster (EM HIEC) in 2012

Development of a guideline for health visitors to use with parents at risk of developing childhood obesity [co-applicant]
— awarded £49966 by Burdett Trust for Nursing in 2012

Systematic review of clinical outcome and cost effectiveness comparing a policy of triage and direct transfer to specialist care centres with delivery to the nearest local hospital [co-applicant]
— awarded £135928 by NIHR: Service Delivery and Organisation Programme in 2010

Developing new ways of measuring the impact of ambulance service care: Pre-Hospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE) [chief investigator]
— awarded £2035954 by NIHR: Programme Grant for Applied Health Research in 2010

NIHR Research Design Service East Midlands (NIHR-RDSEM) [co-applicant]
— awarded £5137500 by NIHR in 2010